De-chipping Spike

[desoto_hia873]

When I started reading Buffyverse fanfic, the first big archive site I found was All About Spike. Which worked for me because he was my favourite character. Anyway, one of the things that I was quite delighted with was the wide variety of ways that people came up with to get the chip out of Spike's head.

Being old and fogey as I am (and becoming more so every day), I now can't remember half of the dechipping methods that I've read about. In fact, I can only come up with three. I don't want to spoil people for any stories that they haven't read, so I'm putting this very short list under the cut - click at your own risk.



rahirah has Willow magic the chip out in Necessary Evils. The twist on this method is that Willow didn't ask Spike before she did it and didn't want him to stop her mid-spell, so she 'recited' the incantation in American Sign Language with her hand behind her back. No one said spells had to be verbal, right?

cousinjean had Spike inadvertently remove it himself by wishing it out in a conversation with Halfrek (Perfect World).

missmurchison had Tara magic it out in her charming Spara story Quick and Bitter, Slow and Sweet. Tara was in the process of losing her het virginity to Spike and she didn't want to ruin his pleasure by having the chip go off as he entered her.

ETA: Oh yeah, cousinjean also had Spike's chip modified in a futurefic so that he could fight humans in self-defense (Future Imperfect). I guess that sort of counts.



I know there were so many more. What ways have you read?

Comments

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

One more off the top of my head:

hlynn had Glory remove it in "Sideways Shanshu"

And I can remember another story, though the title and author are totally escaping me. It was written around the end of Season Four, and had Spike's chip get fried after he's slammed into a breaker box or something similar while fighting a demon. He gets all geared up to go kill Buffy and winds up realizing he loves her. I haven't read it in ages, though I know I saved a copy. Have to keep looking.

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

You've jogged my memory - I read a different story where Glory removed the chip while attempting to brainsuck Spike. Possibly it was Dancing Lessons? I was about to say that I'll have to go look, but - damn!

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

D'oh! I can't believe I forgot this one:

"Darkest Before Dawn" by nmissi -- written and posted a chapter a day during rerun hell in Season Five. We'd seen up to "The Body" at that point and then had a six week or so break before new episodes.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

The link I gave you is for the first chapter, without any links to the following chapters, here's a better link for "Darkest Before Dawn". Or you can read it on her website, though she's got background images on every page that make it a bit tough.

The sequel, "Unconventional Sunrise" has never been finished, and while it was still good, it never really grabbed me (she was moving away from BtVS fandom at that point and I think that had a big impact on her writing).

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Okay, the second story was "Second Chance" by WhiteWolf (and there was a sequel "Choices"), that sadly does not appear to be online anywhere anymore. If you're interested in reading it, let me know and I'll forward it to you.

I stumbled across one other, but sadly I only have the first chapter and no author name (excuse me while I go whack myself upside the head for being an idiot), where it turns out there never was a chip at all... it was all in his mind, so to speak. It's old enough that it's not showing up anywhere online with any of the keywords I've tried.

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

Wow, you're like an archive unto yourself! Sure, send it along - I'll probably go into withdrawal after the RDAs are over, so I'll a fix. :-)